"The preferential option for the poor, which is one of the primary tenets of Catholic social teaching, means don’t keep people poor, don’t make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life. Help people get out of poverty, out onto life of independence."

From that, we get this from Ocasio:

We’d love to hear Ryan’s version of the good Samaritan. Maybe instead of helping the poor fellow on the side of the road, the Samaritan dispensed a few uplifting words and continued on his merry way.

The problem is, "help" is not defined. Ocasio does make it obvious that by help she doesn't mean a voluntary act of good will. That doesn't fit into her worldview. She writes:

Ocasio equates Good Samaritanism with welfare statism. Every one of those programs begins with government theft. Every one is funded by money forcibly taken from productive people. The Good Samaritan, in Ocasio's world, is the man who pulls legal stick-ups for a living, hands some of the loot to some "poor fellow," making him dependent on stolen goods, then claims credit for being "anti-poverty."

Since Ocasio shrieks in horror at so callous a phrase as "life of independence," one wonders what she means by "anti-poverty." Isn't independence the very antithesis of poverty? Ocasio should explain how one could be against both poverty and independence.

But Ocasio raises a more fundamental question: What does Christianity actually stand for? This goes to the heart of the conflict between the Christian Right and the Christian Left. In this regard, I've left the following comments:

It’s an open question whether Jesus would support the redistributionist state. After all, every dollar handed out by government programs is a dollar taken by force from someone who earned it. Would Jesus support legalized theft on such a grand scale? Who knows?
But one thing for sure is that the Catholic Church thinks so. It has long been on record, in the name of Jesus, as calling for a totalitarian global welfare state. Paul VI lays out this vision in no uncertain terms in his 1967 Encyclical Populorum Progressio. He called for “public authorities” to be endowed with powers to redistribute “created goods” from those who created them to those who didn’t. Those powers are to be total, enabling governments “to establish and lay down the desired goals, the plans to be followed, and the methods to be used” in pursuit of their collectivist vision. Paul was unequivocal: “All other rights, whatever they may be, including the rights of property and free trade, are to be subordinated to this principle.”
In other words, you live at the mercy of an omnipotent state, which will guarantee your basic sustenance. Benedict XVI, reaffirmed this view in his 2009 Encyclical Caritas in Veritate. This is a long-held ideology. The Church was Marxist before Marx.
Whatever Jesus’ politics, his ethics of universal altruism and self-sacrifice for those who have less underpins socialism in all of its variants. If Ryan—who, by the way, would not actually cut the welfare state, but merely grow it more slowly—is going to rely on Jesus to support his budget, he’ll lose. Morally, Jesus is clearly on the other side.
The only way to defeat socialism is to reject altruism and uphold ethical, rational egoism; the inalienable right of every individual to think and act on his own judgment, in support of his own life, choices, goals, property, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Or, to put it more simply, the right to be free from thieving welfare statists.

About Me

Greetings and welcome to my blog. My name is Michael A. (Mike) LaFerrara. I sometimes use the pen or "screen" name "Mike Zemack" or "Zemack" in online activism, such as posted comments on articles. “Zemack” stands for the first letters of the names of my six grandchildren. I was born in 1949 in New Jersey, U.S.A., where I retired from a career in the plumbing, building controls, and construction industries, and still reside with my wife of 45 years. The purpose of my blog is the discussion of a wide range of topics relating to human events. My analysis is informed by the principles of Objectivism, the philosophy of reason and independence originated by Ayn Rand.

As Rand observed: “The professional intellectual is the field agent of the army whose commander-in-chief is the philosopher.” I am certainly not the philosopher. But neither am I a field agent, or general. I am a foot soldier in that Objectivist army that fights for an individualist society in which every person can live in dignified sovereignty, by his own reasoned judgment, for his own sake, in that state of peaceful coexistence with his fellow man that only capitalist political and economic freedom can provide. While I am a fully committed Objectivist, my opinions are based on my own understanding of Objectivism, and should not be taken as definitive “Objectivist positions.” For the full story of my journey toward Objectivism, see my Introduction.

One final introductory note: I strongly recommend Philosophy, Who Needs it, which highlights the inescapable importance of philosophy in every individual's life. I can be reached at mal.atlas@comcast.net. Thanks, Mike LaFerrara.

Recommended Essays/Videos

Quotes I Like

Let me give you a tip on a clue to men’s characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it. Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.—Francisco d'Anconia

I love getting older...I get to grow up and learn things. Madalyn, 5 years old, Montesorri student, and my grand-daughter

The best thing one can do for the poor is to not become one of them. Author Unknown

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. Francis Bacon

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. Ronald Reagan

Thinking is hard work. If it weren't, more people would do it. Henry Ford

Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries. Ayn Rand